Small Businesses and Social Media

I have to admit, I go to my fair share of networking events, but not nearly enough. And here's why. A lot of small business owners go to them, too, and in a medium sized town, that can be a good thing because you'll get to know a lot of people who do business in town very quickly. BUT, they all want to figure out how social media can help their business. And by help I mean, generate sales.

So I get asked a lot for what is the equivalent of free advice. I don't mind, I really don't. I have a pretty standard answer I give, and that's to consult and pay someone who does it for a living. Much the same as my attorney or physician friends say to the random questions they get 'That sounds interesting, you should really make an appointment with a specialist in that field'.

So what is my stock answer? It's pretty basic, 'Wow, so you want to figure out which platforms will help you and how much time it will take? You should contact a couple of marketing firms and get a proposal to see what they think. I'd also be happy to create a proposal for you if you'd like to sit down for a meeting to discuss your goals'. The long answer is too long for a blog post, and at this point in the life of social media for business, too complicated for a one-size fits all answer.

The thing I find most interesting is many small business owners think, and truly believe, social media is the answer to slow sales. And if we sit down and discuss their goals and what their expectations of social media are, I also discuss some of the marketing fundamentals. If the business owner is selling a service, I will ask who their competitors are and if they know (or care) how much they are charging. If you're selling a service and you're over or under priced, that's something that could make for compelling content. You can tell the story of why. And sometimes products are easier. Have you priced it like everyone else has on the web. If not, is there something that differentiates your product in such a way as to make it worth the extra money. I very rarely encourage anyone to price up. It usually takes a very quick internet search for me to determine the small business owner has decided to ignore pricing fundamentals and have priced themselves out of the market.

These are the business owners who want to use social media as a sales pitch. We've all seen the ads pop up in our timeline or in the sidebar. The ones that say you can get this great discount on our product. And the person who sees it says, 'huh, that seems like a good idea. I wonder if I can get it for less somewhere else?' and then they use the interwebs and discover they can get the same product for much less. I've told a couple of small business owners recently to review their pricing strategy in light of the quick research I've done. The end result of social media is never useful for them and it never meets their expectations, so the ROI isn't there. Bottom line - if you price your product high, then pay for the ad either through Google or Facebook, what you make has to be more than you've spent. And the ad teams for Google and Facebook are good! They never promise any sales, they promise impressions or clicks and tell you what the average profit is. And it's all about advertising.

I encourage small business owners to view social media as a growth opportunity for their business, and to use it as an extension of their networking, but in a slightly more commercial way. When networking face-to-face, it's easy and natural to discuss what you are doing and celebrate your achievements. When networking online, it takes a little more thought. You don't want to be in your face with a buy this, it's the greatest thing ever mentality, but you also want to provide content in such a way that it illustrates your product or expertise. It should be good, compelling content that encourages conversation or delivers something useful (not just that you have a product offering or service).

But I do enjoy the conversations I have had. It's very enlightening to talk to people about their personal and professional opinions about Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Google+. I can't tell you how many people have told me they just don't get it or they don't use it, but are sure it will deliver something useful if they just found the time for it. Well, yes, time is the key. Own it, develop it and measure it. And remember that it won't happen overnight.

Entitlement and the New Job Search

So I have to admit, I've been a fan of Peter Shankman's for a long time. I first heard about him when he pulled a PR stunt to get a job (he stood on a NYC street corner with his resume on the billboard he was wearing). As memorable as that was, I didn't hear about him again until I joined a group called Young PR Pros, and he was an active contributor. I've been following his adventures ever since. Luckily for me, I met him, and that kind of sealed the deal. He's a great guy, and he shares a lot on his blog. So imagine my surprise when I was reading about entitled Millenials and came across his name.

Which led me down the rabbit hole, as it does every time. I really have to get control of that. I also have to stop letting the holidays slow down my reading. By the time I got to his blog post today, it was a month old. Shame on me. And, it was a response to someone else's post on the topic. To be fair to myself, it started with a news show, and I don't really watch the news. I choose to check the news on my laptop, which is just a particular laziness on my part.

So his blog post was responding to his non-stance on Millenials during a tv show addressing the conception that Millenials don't have the job skills for most of today's jobs. For the record, he wrote, and I believe, he doesn't really have a stance based on age or label. He does likely have a stance based on the ability to complete the work requested, which is where the job search comes in. It's all well and good to graduate from college. I'm a big fan, having done it myself. But why don't we inject a little reality into the situation?

I see entry level salaries for jobs purporting to be entry level jobs with mid-range level responsibilities. I've seen entry level jobs that pay $30-40K annually where the person hired for the job is responsible for the marketing and PR strategy. Not just executing the strategy, but creating it. I am sure there are recent graduates who can handle this type of responsibility, and do it well. I'm not even going to address my thoughts on why it is, exactly, that companies choose to take two entirely different disciplines like marketing and PR and blend them together. That's an insane expectation for your average college graduate. The best part? The new grads believe they can do it, if only they were given the chance. Better yet, they think they are entitled to the job because they've never failed, or they got good grades and graduated magna cum laude.

New grads are really looking for that $60-100K salary, though, which is really why they take jobs taht include responsibilities they have no idea how to accomplish, much less in an environment that frequently requires working with people who have a dotted line responsibility to you. But new grads don't want just a job. They want the job salary that was promised to them when they started college. Which is what a lot of more experienced job seekers are looking for, too. And they're struggling to find a job that will pay the mortgage and car payment and whatever else after having been down-sized. They're truly qualified for that entry level job that pays $30-40K, but they may not be able to afford to take that job. Or they feel like they shouldn't have to take a pay cut so they can be employed again.

It's pretty amazing to look at job descriptions, though. No longer is an intern or new grad asked to file and get coffee, maybe put together a PPT. Take a look at LinkedIn, and sort by entry level jobs. You might be amazed at the expectations, but those job descriptions reflect the opportunity companies are taking in a depressed job market to hire the best candidate for the least amount of money. If their HR professional can find and hire someone willing and mostly able to do the work, even if they've never done anything like it before outside of a paper for a class. But...if you hire someone who is a new grad and expects to work an 80 hour week to get the job done, then bully for you. It is amazing, though, to hear the kerfuffle over how Millenials aren't able to do the jobs they were hired to do. Of course they aren't. The job market is such that the job responsibilities went up and the salaries went down. I've looked at jobs that pay $30-40K and haven't applied. Not because of the money, but because there were responsibilities in the job description that I had never done before and they were asking for 3-5 years experience. It doesn't take long for employers to figure out you are on a learning curve, which is what an entry level position is for. Not to hire someone who hasn't ever converted a PPT to a Prezi for use at a trade show or conference call, but you expect them to be able to because you listed it in the job requirements.

The point here is, entitlement isn't just for Millenials. I've met a lot of entitled people, and read a lot of job descriptions that sound like the person or company writing them feels as though they are entitled to the best for less. I have found that entitlement is something everyone can fall victim to. If you listen carefully, entitled people tend to believe they deserve something and it comes through loud and clear in the way they speak and carry themselves. I'm not putting anyone down, here. It's just interesting to me that there's this disconnect between people who believe your actual experience and the way you present and carry yourself matters, and people who believe that because they want it, they should have it, for the simple reason that they exist and no matter what actual experience they have.

The Pitch

While on my unplanned and unannounced vacation (sorry!), I happened across a tv show I really found interesting. It's called 'The Pitch' and the premise is two different ad agencies in the final selection process for a client. I'd heard about it before, but thought it was more geared towards public relations. It's not.

So I managed to watch two episodes, and I found some strong similarities in the way ad agencies work. And then some other things, like the way the roles of communication impact teamwork. You could see which agencies felt the freedom to truly create, and which ones had locked down who could communicate and when. I noticed a funny thing, too. The ones that locked down who could communicate and when struggled more with their creative.

That may seem odd, but to me it didn't. If you have no real feel for what the potential client wants, and even if you do, but you have no freedom to explore an idea through to the end before having it shot down, I don't think you get the best creative. It just seems like a really bad idea to me. 

In the one episode, there was a young woman, moderately new to the agency, who came up with a great idea. It was the idea chosen to present, too, which was great. Then there was a long discussion about whether she should participate in the pitch to the client. What? One of the essential elements of persuasive communication, which is what an agency pitch to a potential client is, basically, is that the person who truly believes in the idea and owns the idea, is there to act as the idea's champion. Only that person can be so persuasive and so passionate because they know how they got from point A to point B, and the logic it took to get there. Someone who is just presenting the idea may well feel just as passionately about the idea, but if they didn't come up with it themselves, they may not understand some of the logic leaps.

The other episode I saw was fairly interesting from a communication stand point. The first agency brain stormed through the client's needs and came up with an idea they loved. It was great, but unfortunately already done for the same type of client. Instead of shutting down the creative, they went back to the drawing board as a team and came up with another idea. I was pretty impressed with the way they worked. It was clear they were accustomed to working with each other and had honed their interpersonal communication to optimize their results while reducing time on ideas they didn't want to pursue.

In that episode the other agency had a creative team come up with the idea and present it to the creative director and the rest of the decision making team. It seems like a difficult way to achieve the end result, but there were opportunities to explain the thought process. I'm sure large agencies don't have the time to work creative together, but going back to my earlier point, the most persuasive person to pitch the client is the person who owns it. Birthed the idea, if you will.  

You just have to let the creativity and communication shine through sometimes, and that makes persuasive communication the key to any great presentation or a winning pitch.

Aggressiveness in Business

I read recently a PR Daily article about whether you have to be ruthless to get ahead, and the article focused mostly on how it applies to women. It also found a recent trend for women who have been turned off by the behavior of contestants who believe that business is ruthless on tv shows.

I found it very interesting the image they chose to use was from the movie The Devil Wears Prada. I've worked for people who communicate in much the same ways as Meryl Streep's character, Miranda Priestly. You're lucky if you haven't. The one positive thing I can about that character is she expected perfection because she herself was a perfectionist. Unfortunately, she is one of those people who expect you to know everything and understand exactly what she's talking about without the benefit of all the years of experience.

That's just it, though, right? To Miranda, the communication was crystal clear. To everyone else around her, it was a puzzle. And most of the time they worked it out, so there was no reason Miranda would think her communication was at all unclear. It happens a lot in communication. How many times have you tried to tell someone something, only to find they don't have the same base of knowledge you have? It adjusts your perception of their abilities, underlined by your personal or professional bias, that same bias that allows you to say things like 'who doesn't know that'.

The benefit to working with someone like Miranda is that you pretty quickly discover you are on your own without any help from your boss, but the communication, to them, is crystal clear. If you can figure out the code consistently, you're probably going to be in good shape with your boss.So what happens when it's true ruthlessness at work?

By that I mean, when your boss needs to feel better than you, and will actively use passive/aggressive communication to make sure you don't succeed and feel defeated. I've always hated these types of communicators. It's really just awful. You think they're helping you out by explaining something, only to find in the meeting they have only explained half of what you needed to know and they make an excuse for you, in public, along the lines of 'We did discuss this something, and I was sure he/she understood, but clearly they we'll have to address this topic at a later date when we're more prepared'.

It sounds kind of nice, doesn't it? Your boss using the word we? Even though you look like an unprepared jackass to the others at the meeting. This is pretty aggressive behavior, and your boss is using your perceived lack of preparedness or knowledge to make themselves look better. Ruthless. but with a coat of sugar on it. So what can you do when you encounter someone who consistently says they are helping and providing necessary information for you to do your job, or live your life, well? Address it.

I was reading a post at Tiny Buddha about it, and while a handy overview about how to communicate clearly about what you need, don't expect to get it from a passive/aggressive boss. It's different when you are able to communicate as an equal, like you can with your parents, siblings, life partner or friends, than when you have to communicate with your boss, who can fire you. I did find an interesting tidbit in the article about anger and negativity. it makes sense. Anyone so angry at their life or their work, or so negative about the outcome of a particular project, is very likely to engage in passive/aggressive behavior to make them right. Which won't make them any happier, just so you know.

Your best bet here is to look to others on the project to clarify project deliverables and key project goals for you. By finding other, more trusted, routes of communication that help you rather than hurt you, you will likely succeed despite the lack of clear communication. Don't think that's going to make your boss any less ruthless, though, and the passive/aggressive communication isn't going to change. You'll just have to find workplace partners in crime who communicate clearly and are involved, even peripherally on projects you're working on.

Is Your Meaning Ever Lost in Translation?

I was watching the US Open last night and a Mercedes Benz commercial ran. Now, if I had recorded the US Open like a sane person, I could have just hit the fast forward button and skipped all the commercials, but I didn't. So I had to suffer through all the commercials.

As commercials go, this was a good one. It told the story of Mercedes Benz (true or not, up to you to believe) and was accompanied by shots of the theme in various car/racing endeavors featuring a Mercedes car. The story starts with the founder, who wrote his mantra down, and then followed it through the years to excellence. The mantra is 'The Best or Nothing'. 

That's fine as a mantra. Before fast fashion, I would have said everyone's mantra was to be the best. I guess fast fashion's mantra could be have the best cheap clothes, but I digress. In the voice over, there was a bit about making sure the meaning of the best or nothing was never lost. It got me thinking. How do you do that without stifling creativity? The reality for all product development, and the marketing that accompanies it, is that there are budgets. The flexibility of the budget is individual to the size of the company and the processes and procedures they follow, but you get the idea. At some point you have to decide it's the best or nothing, and that it represents the meaning of your brand.

Thinking about commercials, how many have you seen that are just plain awful? or a campy commercial addressing a serious topic? and my favorite, the 30 second mini drama? Do commercials you dislike or fast forward through really convey the best or nothing? I don't think so. In the brave new world of YouTube, Vine and other video upload sites, there are creative pieces for brands that leave a much more positive and lasting impression. How do you ensure that the meaning is not lost in translation? 

Taking it one step further, a commercial is a shorter version of communication with others. It's just on a larger scale than what people outside the advertising industry typically look for. I get that you can't make everyone happy with a commercial (think of the variety of Super Bowl commercials), and I think the same goes for conversational or business communication. Sometimes the meaning is lost in translation, and it depends very much on who the listener is and what their previous experiences and current prejudices lead them to believe. It goes to the fundamental heart of marketing, advertising and just plain basic communication skills - if you want to be the best or nothing, you have to know who your audience is so the meaning of your communication isn't lost.

Redefining Communication for a New Generation, or Freshening a Brand for the Old Generation

I do like Nike. Nike put Just Do It out there into the universe twenty some odd years ago, and clearly people bought into it without any additional definition from Nike. Of course there were the commercials, the merchandise and the celebrity endorsements. Everybody does it.

People embraced the concept, though. It didn't matter what they were doing, playing checkers or playing football, going to school or going to work, the Just Do it mantra was in their head. I'm pretty sure it gave rise to 'git 'er done'. This year they, meaning Nike and their ad agency, decided to freshen the brand.

What does that mean? Are they abandoning Just Do It? Well, not exactly. They seem to be expanding, but from a strong statement to a weaker one. Think about it. If someone tells you to Just Do It are you motivated? What about if someone tells you there are Possibilities? The new ad campaign is about possibilities. So is it the same thing?

I don't think so. Just Do It is a command, an exhortation to get out of your own way and succeed. Possibilities just says something is out there, and it could happen, but it also couldn't. It's just a possibility. In the same way it's a possibility I could be like Mike. The two phrases just don't mean the same thing, and one is much more inspirational to me than the other. The wording matters.

Marketing Yourself Effectively

I met Peter Shankman in probably 2000. Great guy - very funny and personable. So great, in fact, that I started keeping up with what he was doing using all the normal social media channels. One of those channels is his blog.

He recently wrote a blog post on networking, and it's one of the things I find solo shops and freelancers have a really hard time fitting in or making work for them. The first issue is time. Sometimes there really isn't enough time in the day, and I suspect the issue here is time management or over-commitment. Either way, if you don't network well, and don't take the opportunity to network no matter where you are, you should read his post. And then go out and buy the book You, Inc and take some of the advice there.

So what was so great about the post? It covers the fundamentals most of us learned in kindergarten or first grade and then progressively forgot. The first is that making friends is still as easy as 'Hi! My name is Jeannie. What's your name?'. It works great in networking situations and if you can stay away from business for a few minutes you just might make a great new, engaged contact for your network. A great opener is something along the lines of what Peter suggested, using items in your surroundings to engage in conversation, or you can ask what brought the person to the event you're at. You don't want to be the person there whose sole goal is to grab everyone's card after a cursory 'Hey, how are you? What do you do? I do this' approach. Pretty basic stuff, and something you've likely known for a long time.

The second is to remember to have fun. Peter just considers himself fortunate to be where he is in life, with everything he's accomplished. I know he works harder than most of the people I know, but it's kind of fun to read about how amazed he is at what he has achieved. Making new friends and attending networking events should be fun for you - whether it's a small dose, such as an hour, or the full course, like the whole event from open to close, go and have fun. Make new friends. And then for goodness sake, follow up!

That's the last thing that seems difficult for some. It's time consuming, I know. And throwing in the personal bits to make the follow up less about you and more about the relationship, well that just takes an honest interest in what other people are doing, but it also takes a minute. Sometimes more than the minute you have to keep up with your friends and family. Meeting people at networking events and handing them your card, making a connection...it's no good if you don't follow up and maintain the connection. You may as well have never gone to the event and spent the time with family and friends. Drop them a line, follow up with a call - see how you can help each other succeed. If you really had a good feeling about the person you met, it's nice to develop that kind of referral friendship. It pays dividends. Just look at what Peter has done over the years, just be being a great guy and knowing how to market himself effectively.

Does Forever 21 Have a PR Crisis, or a Communication Blip?

It's pretty easy to find yourself in the center of a social media firestorm these days. Between Bustle and the latest Swifties wrath, you'd think the Forever 21 memo would have slid right through. Wishful thinking.

It's pretty bad when greed, religion and politics all show up as the result of one communication. And by all accounts, the corp comm that went out was a fairly standard memo. That was before it was leaked and linked to Obamacare and underemployment. So was there a way to mitigate the message so the workers affected wouldn't lose their healthcare, and it wouldn't look so much like Forever 21 was just trying to save a buck or two?

Not helpful is the information coming out afterwards that in addition to downgrading employees from full time to part time, Forever 21 was projected to make $4 billion in 2012. HuffPo covered the story here. As I read the coverage, it became less about religion and more about a cost cutting move to save the company some money. Having read Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, I was a little dismayed to discover that at the base of the move is greed. I do wonder whether it will impact their sales or their ability to hire part time teenagers (their target market).

I suspect the parents will care more than the teenagers about Forever 21's decision. And as a general rule, parents control spending, and for those kids who have access to unlimited money, I don't think they are in the Forever 21 target market. So let's take a look at the target market: teenagers 14-18 and probably young adults 19-24. Let's go out on a limb and decide the teenagers income is low, and the parents probably make between $50-75K, own a home and have more than one child. The young adults are working a little bit while in school and after school are looking at about $30-50K (if they can find a job).

Funnily enough, I think Forever 21's target markets are also probably working there as part time employees to make a little money to supplement their income, and more importantly, to get the clothing discount. If staying current with fashion or shopping regularly is important to you, as I suspect it is to the Forever 21 target markets, then that discount is much more important than working full time, Obamacare or pretty much anything else.

Add to the argument that the target markets don't likely need insurance, since they are either covered by their parents or by their first job, and the impact to Forever 21 in any meaningful way is negligible. Which is a little crazy. It would seem like their target market should care more. And there are definitely members of the target market who cannot afford to shop regularly and need the full time hours to make ends meet and help themselves or their family, but realistically, these are not people/shoppers Forever 21 is counting on to make $4 billion in profits.

So, unfortunately, at the end of the day, I think Forever 21 is suffering the backlash of a communication blip, and if they don't come right out and say something incredibly offensive they should be okay, and long forgotten by Labor Day.

The Bustle Mess: Where the Communication Failed

Not to belabor the point, but...written communication is much different than interpersonal communication. I read an article today at Business Insider about Bryan Goldberg's apology. What struck me most was what the writer had to say about the very public, very embarrassing, launch.

The writer described the attributes confidence, wit and smarts and applied the to Goldberg. The best way to find out things like that is to listen to someone speak in a conversational setting. Then the listener can hear the inflection of the voice, watch the non-verbal communication, like facial expression, and participate in the verbal cues of conversation, like laughter, instead of the written LOL.

It's possible Goldberg thought his written words were pithy, smart and conveyed the idea that got him the VC funding. Unfortunately for him, sarcasm and wit don't necessarily translate to paper in the same way as an interview might have. And he was crucified for it. Enter the apology. Offending your peers and your target market can kill a business, and in the majority of cases one would think that will happen to Bustle. That remains to be seen.

The second part of Goldberg's apology dealt with dissing the entire group of women's publications, online and offline. I know that if I had provided the marketing analysis of the competitive landscape for Bustle and then read the launch materials, I would have been very confused. His assertion that Vogue writers don't own part of their company came across and snarky and elitist when I read it, and he did apologize for attacking his competitors.

The key issue here is whether the written communication is now something one can trust. It's easy to correct a mistake with a cracker jack crises PR team, and, call me jaded, but after having their names splashed all over the internet as the idiot VC's who supported a guy who came off as the world's biggest misogynist jerk, I'm sure somebody made a call or two to rectify the situation and salvage some hope of getting their money back. But loss of trust is a lot to overcome, for me or for anyone else.

Bustle

I must confess. I read a lot of interesting articles I wouldn't normally otherwise because my friends post them on Facebook. I do read news, but I tend to focus on things that interest me, and that sometimes precludes items my friends find. They found an interesting article yesterday about a new online magazine called Bustle, and I spent a good hour trying to figure out whether the CEO believes any press is good press or he's just terribly misguided.

By-passing the fact that anyone under 30, maybe even 40, have no idea that a bustle is an undergarment worn by women during time periods requiring them to wear a dress with lift in the back every day (1910?). In fact, the first time many women hear about a bustle these days is when they go wedding dress shopping. Setting that aside and thinking maybe the founder was thinking hustle and bustle and it was already taken, I continued to read several articles implying he's a misogynist who should have his head examined.

One such article was on Slate, who I think covered the topic fairly well - new magazine exclusively addressing the fact that women like to read world news and celebrity gossip in the same sitting (HuffPo, anyone?) that was the only one of its' kind. Slate pulled out at least 15 feminist focused online magazines that do exactly the same thing as Bustle, and they launched 5-10 years ago. So what about this is new, or different for that matter? And why is this guy so impressed with himself and his product?

Bryan Goldberg founded the Bleacher Report, which covers sports news I assume he knows well and has an interest in. Clearly he has an interest in women, but I think he might be going about communicating that in a way designed to irritate and anger the very feminist women he is attempting to attract to his site. In fact, of all the sites I looked at yesterday, I never once went to Bustle to figure out if I'd even read it. I was too busy trying to figure out if, with the mountains of free time I have, the guy was enough of a jackass that I wouldn't want to support it.

Back to the news. When Forbes immediately publishes an article about whether Bustle just launched a $6.5 million dollar bust, you have to think - who gave this guy $6.5 million for this idea? Did it sound different when he pitched it? If it did, why didn't he use that pitch with the media? For most people, venture funding is hard to come by, and your idea is dissected before they agree to give money. I guess not in this case. Unless he managed to resurrect some really rich guys from oh, say, 1900 who had no idea women could write, much less be interested and understand the concepts of politics and fashion all in the same sitting.

CBC also posted something terribly funny and refreshingly balanced on the topic. They used the Twittersphere response to illustrate the backlash, and I learned a new word (mansplaining). The Globe & Mail also commented, and referred readers to a hilarious on-point piece at the Medium, which made me laugh out loud. The piece on Medium did something no other piece did, though - identified the VC's that ponied up the $6.5 mil.

By investing in what has become a laughingstock of a man's view of feminism and feminist issues that may as well have come from Elizabethan England and embarrassingly occurred yesterday, I have to wonder what they are communicating themselves. Do they believe all the nonsense Goldberg is spouting? Do they view their female customers the same way he does?

There were many more articles, written worldwide, about how badly the idea of Bustle has been communicated to the very people they view as their target market. The point here is communication matters. What you communicate directly (Bustle) or indirectly (Social+Capital Partnership, Time Warner Investment, Google Ventures, 500 Startups and Rothenberg Ventures), people listen and your target market develops perceptions about who you are.

Social Media on a Solo Mission

Businesses come in many different forms, and they all address the moving pieces of marketing differently. Large corporations tend to rely on large marketing departments and medium sized businesses either farm it out or work with a smaller marketing department that's frequently also part sales. So what about the solo entrepreneur or the small business who maybe doesn't do a lot of marketing because they are more focused on word of mouth or referral only?

I can't tell you how many solos I've run into recently who have decided that part of their job is to tackle social media. My advice, just like handling PR, is hand that off to a professional. It's not their job to know how to do everything, it's their job to know how to manage based on results. Results are often referred to as ROI, or return on investment. So you sit down with a professional, one who keeps up with the way Google measures analytics, one who understands what sending a newsletter will do for you, what the content calendar is and what to expect from said newsletter, and that not every social media opportunity is necessarily appropriate for your business, and you work out a plan.

It's a full time job for most marketing professionals to keep up with everything, it's even more important to assess what you want from social media before you spend the time and resources on it, and it's certainly not something a jewelry designer should have to keep up with in addition to creating their vision and learning new techniques. For instance, Polyvore is a great social tool for designers, stylists and other professionals in fashion, but not great for someone in the music industry. It's that type of knowledge the solo who decides social media is 'easy' and something the should 'handle on their own' misses out on.

And then there's the time factor. It takes time to manage social media, much less build a lead generation campaign. The same solos I meet who tell me they should be able to manage this on their own, are the same ones whose favorite response to just about everything is 'I'm just so busy'. So yes, I am mystified about the goals and expectations they have, and conversely, I wonder if these are the same people who tell everyone they know that they 'tried social media' and it 'just didn't work for them'.

So my advice, if you are a solo business owner or have less than say, twenty employees, budget for a marketing plan, including social media. Go out and have it professionally done. When you get it, pay the bill, read the plan, and then assign elements of the plan a priority based on what the plan estimates the ROI is, and what you can reasonably do yourself or have a member of your staff do. Keep track of how well you managed to complete the elements of the plan and evaluate at the end of the year. I think you'll be surprised at how much time and dedication it takes, and what the benefits were.

Is Traditional Marketing Dead?

That's what an article I read in the Harvard Business Review states. While I agree that marketing is certainly changing, and my DVR allows me to fast forward through many commercials, unless I need five minutes to take the dog out or something, I don't think it's quite dead yet. I've been flipping past advertisements in magazines for years, and yet, those magazines still sell advertising.

And the funniest part of the whole blog post was where the author pointed out that "National Instruments used an especially creative approach with its customer influencers, who were mid-level IT managers at the companies they did business with. NI engaged with them by providing powerful research and financial proof points they could take to senior management, showing that NI solutions were creating strategic benefits. That got NI into the C-suite. It also increased the reputation of the mid-level advocates, who were seen as strategic thinkers bringing new ideas to senior management." I'd really like to know who the author thought generated the powerful research and financial proof points. It certainly wasn't the sales team, not that they couldn't do it. It was the marketing team, and that's what they do.

So, no, marketing isn't dead. Any piece of paper you are handed at a tradeshow, any dvd, handout, slide presentation, and any number of things mailed to your home, are created by a marketing department somewhere, even if the marketing department is just one person. Website design? Marketing. The copy on your website? Hopefully marketing, and someone who can spell without using spell check. That white paper the C-level suite wanted so they could showcase themselves as experts in their field? Definitely marketing.

I do agree with one point the author made, and that is the fact that marketing ROI has many different calculations related to determining how successful a campaign is or was, and these calculations don't necessarily translate well to any accounting balance sheet or any other generally accepted financial metric used to calculate monetary value. The old marketing rule of thumb is that if you have a system in place to track where your customers are coming from, you can tell which campaigns work, and which ones don't. If there isn't a system in place, then yes, marketing is likely just a crapshoot.

It's getting easier and easier to track incoming customers, however, and how they came to you. Google Analytics will tell you were your blog and website readers are coming from, for instance, and they'll even tell you the keywords used to find you. And that's just one tool. I've used Salesforce.com in the past, and it's pretty easy to tell how the customer got to you, and then relay that to the sales rep so they know, too. It's teamwork, and when it works between the marketing department and the sales department, company sales are probably showing organic and inorganic growth.

Marketing isn't dead yet, and funnily enough, neither is print, despite the last ten years of everyone saying it is.

Some Days It's Better If You Don't Speak to Others

I'm having one of those days today. I vented to my husband, and picked up a client call I probably shouldn't have. Only because I was frustrated and she uses the phrase 'I don't think that's unreasonable, do you?'. The tactful answer is no, of course it's not unreasonable for you to not check your email, and call 18 times a day to check on the response, tell me the deadline is tomorrow, and you think that networking requires too much energy. On days when you shouldn't speak to others, otherwise known as #ineedavacation, the answer is I sent the email, and yes, I get that your business is important to you, but you are focusing on this one thing today, which is already completed and you have already accepted and approved, and asking about several others when we haven't scheduled a meeting even to discuss them and what you think the ROI is.

See the difference? Tact, and no tact. One is fully rested and in a positive frame of mind, and the other is #ineedavacation. There's no harm in recognizing that some times it's just not a good day to speak to others. Knowing who you are and how you communicate will help you in your day-to-day relationships. Don't get me wrong, there are some days and some situations you won't be able to control, and in those cases it may be better to follow Abe Lincoln's advice: "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

In a business environment, it's hard to do that. In meetings, you're called upon for your opinion, and remaining silent is disadvantageous to your mission or goal. In the many corporate meetings I have attended, however, it's easy enough if it's not a strategic meeting to jot down thoughts and questions, give them some thought and set them aside for a couple of hours, and then discuss them via email. The method may be a little delayed, but it gives you the opportunity to figure out if you need a vacation or can speak intelligently without allowing the frustration to come shining on through.

And I do hope you have minimal days where you are in the #ineedavacation frame of mind.

If You Edit Copy, You Know What I'm Talking About

Is it just me? Or are there others out there who see instantly the bad grammar, misspellings, and punctuation mistakes that make communication unclear? Sometimes I wonder. Take for instance the corporate memo sent to all the employees of a large company. I worked there at the time, and read it with interest. It was during the run-up to all the massive layoffs, and the memo was encouraging discretion. Unfortunately, the spelling was discrete, and not discreet.

I find errors like that in a lot of my reading material, and I frequently wonder about the authors. In today's world, smart and successful don't seem to include the ability to write clearly. Based in the US, my view is likely limited, although I do work globally. I have found it very difficult to edit copy translated from another language, depending on the type of translation service used.

I have to confess to watching a lot of tennis on tv. The global nature of the game appeals to me, and as a tennis player, I understand the game so it's not boring. What fascinates me most, is that most of the tennis players give post-match interviews. they all speak English to a moderate degree, and several of the top 10 players speak, read, and write at least two languages, if not three. I mean, pro tennis players are smart, but their job is to spend as much time on a tennis court as possible, not learning how to edit copy in multiple languages. How is a copywriter able to compete with that?

Quite simply, they aren't, which leads to specialization. And I wonder if that's good for anyone. It reduces the pool of applicants for any job to native speakers, or those with good relationships with a translation service. But how does anyone who writes copy then proof the translated copy? The difference between words like discrete and discreet can only amplify when there is a language that uses intonation and and other punctuation to indicate subtle differences between meanings.

All I Can Say is Wow

Sometimes it's all you can do to not say anything at all. Then there are the wow moments. The ones that make your heart stop. Those moments are experienced by people who are willing to commit to a plan of action, take responsibility for what they do in life, and take risks. The other, frequently overlooked item, is to tell people about your goals and what you're doing.

Embrace your wow moments, commit to a plan of action today, and tell people. On your blog, on FaceBook, and on Twitter. After all, you'll be finished with your taxes tomorrow - plenty of time to plan. :)

Communication Frequency

I've been working with a couple of clients recently who have what I consider a somewhat archaic view of communication. Rule number one: if your project deadline is a couple weeks from now, you do not need to call me, text me, or email me twice a day to see if I'm finished yet. I've spoken to two clients about this because I am curious about the mindset.

The response is, invariably, I just wanted to check in and see how it was going and I thought you might be finished early. Yep, right - I finished, and I'm not going to send it to you for approval. Sarcasm intended. If I've finished your project, that's one less thing on my perpetual list of things to do. One client says they just call to check. What to do with these clients? Suck it up and #gettowork? I think I balance my day pretty well, even if I'm not working on their project every second of it. Let them go to voice mail? All that gets you is the responsibility to call them back, which sometimes leads to that age old stalling maneuver, phone tag. Email and text have made the potential to robo dial a high probability.

I'm still puzzled, though. It's almost like they don't think I'm going to let them know. I have a client waiting on a contract. We asked for a contingency clause, and this client checks in twice a day. Am I going to check in twice a day with the guy I'm expecting the contract from? No. There's a really fine line between being good at following up, and harassing someone. And as I wrote yesterday, recognizing the personality type you are dealing with goes a long way towards maintaining a friendly and professional relationship. For the record, I have asked this particular client before why they think an hour or a day at the longest is the standard response time for everything. Response: It's on my list of things to check on.

If you don't believe me, check out job postings. Invariably, they have a statement at the bottom that is the equivalent of 'don't call us, we'll call you'. It doesn't have anything to do with whether they want to hire you or not, and it has everything to do with the fact that HR simply does not have enough hours in the day to return the phone calls of desperate or misguided job hunters. They have other projects they work on, meetings to attend, and hopefully, some continuing education courses.

Bottom line: calling repeatedly to ask the same question over and over again because you have the time to do it, can be very frustrating to the person on the receiving end of all the phone calls if they don't have another second to fit in their day if they hope to get everything done. Know the type of person you are communicating with, and if you are compelled to call more than once a day, make sure you're leaving them enough time to work on your project.

Transparency in Communication

Whether you work in communications or not, at some point in time you'll have to work in groups. Groups pose some pretty unique challenges when communicating due to the fact that you're working with a diverse type of communicator and personality.

Working with a variety of personalities, particularly when you are aware of yours and your affect on people, can be fun. If you think the sun rises and sets out of your bum, or think everyone loves you, this post is not for you. Your blissful ignorance will always save you from the wrath of others.

So, there are some basic personality types, introverts and extroverts, type A and type B, and control freak and laid back. Simply put, introverts actually work well on committees and in groups, even though it wears them out. Extroverts enjoy working with others because it gives them an outlet for their energy. A type A wants to get everything perfect and a type B is content throwing things together and letting the chips fall where they may. Control freaks have to have every piece of information, need to double-check it for accuracy, and then dictate how the information is used. On the other hand, if you're working with a laid back person, you may get scattered bits of information until a decision is required.

So where does that leave you? Transparency and acceptance. Accepting that you are going to have to work with someone who doesn't work the way you do, and moreover may think they are laid back when in fact they are a control freak or an extrovert when they are an introvert, is the key to transparent communication.

No one wants to feel like the decision was made without them, particularly if they care about the issue at hand. For people with an even moderate control freak streak in them, collecting information from other sources and making decisions about what to share will drive them crazy. They will really appreciate all the information, and the ability to put it together in a way that makes sense to them. I forgot a personality type that complicates matters a bit, though. There are people, and engineers are frequently labeled with this, who will analyze every piece of information and want to discuss it with the group. It's called analysis paralysis, and it will take a committee down.

In the interest of keeping everyone happy, it's best to establish communication, and provide regular updates in the event changes occur. What kind of changes? The kind where one person takes on the responsibility of another. If it's group information, it's nice to ask the group if someone else who may be doing less, or have an interest in the topic, would like to take it on or share. Most groups meet monthly, so email is the best way to communicate these types of changes or make the request.

Creating an agenda and designating who is responsible for the information will also cut down on the level of surprise, in the event your committee or group has a laid back person on it whose interest is captured for a moment. Following the agenda is good, too, although if the committee or group gets bogged down on a topic, it might be better to designate a date to make a decision and let everyone think about the information individually. It takes the inevitable argument out of the equation, and gives some time and space to think about what was discussed.

One last piece of advice about transparent communication - honesty. If you're in a group or on a committee, and feel like you are being left out of the decision making process, you have to say something to the group. They may not realize that their side conversations or lack of communication bothers you, and the only way to let them know is to tell them. In a really nice, polite way. Something like, 'You appear to have made a decision that I wasn't a part of, and I was wondering why you didn't want or need my input.' That should open the door to conversation. If they are truly unaware, they will discuss it. If they don't care, they'll simply tell you that it wasn't anything you needed to concern yourself with, or they thought it was a decision they were qualified to make themselves.

Working in groups and committees doesn't have to be difficult. You just have to have an idea about how much or how little you want to participate, how big the project is, and how much information you feel like you need to know. And then communicate it to the rest of the group so they know what to expect from you.

When Your Advice Falls Victim to That of Well-Intentioned Friends

I have several clients, some of whom take my advice without question and some who run it by all their friends before making a decision. There are issues with both. I'm not perfect, so taking my advice solely because I'm in marketing takes my client's intelligence and vision for their business out of their hands. Great that they trust me that much, though. Not likely to argue with that anytime soon!

The second client is much more problematic. In a world where the lines between marketing, social media, and public relations are smudged and blurry to most clients, there's a good chance they hired you thinking your expertise extends further than it does. After all, their friends give them solid advice about all manner of things, so any professional must know more than they do.

Unfortunately, in the current marketing climate, particularly if you're adding a social media campaign, timing is of the essence. Thinking that the opportunity to showcase your skills using a specifically targeted campaign will always be there, or can 'wait a week or so' while the client thinks about it, is foolhardy. Nothing kills a business faster than a little indecision.

I'm sure I am not the only one with clients who get input from friends. During these conversations with clients, I always think of my parents, who encouraged, begged, and even pleaded with me to think for myself and take responsibility for my decisions. Fast forward to today. I have a conversation with my client. I lay out all the pros and cons, what the plan is, dates, what I need from said client to make it work, and if the pieces are contingent upon one another, how crucial the timing is. Client says 'Great! Do it!' and I leave the meeting to execute the plan. Going well, right? Please hold.

Two hours later, if I'm lucky, I get a call from client. Questions about how this works, what if we do this, why are we doing this. Fair enough. All goes well, until client says 'I talked to my friends and they say this does/doesn't work'. Then the conversation becomes very predictable.

Me: Oh, okay. So you'd like to do this instead?

Client: Yes. My friends tell me they've seen this done a lot and it works.

Me: Great. Do you know what kind of business it worked for? Is it a business that operates the same way yours does?

Client: I don't know, you're the professional. But my friends are sure this will work. It's the latest/hottest/coolest thing.

Me: Okay. In your business this isn't generally used because it doesn't tend to work, but we can give it a shot if you'd like. Let me re-work the plan and incorporate your changes.

Client: Well, I'd like to try it, so let's do that instead of the other stuff. My friends say that doesn't work.

Me (by now, biting tongue and wondering who the ubiquitous friends are and what they might do for a living): So, you want to scrap the plan you agreed to earlier and do this instead? We can incorporate this idea into the current plan and get the best of both worlds. Do you want me to pull together some numbers so we have an idea about the ROI for this new plan?

Client: No, let's just try what my friends suggested. It can't hurt, right? We can do your plan later if this doesn't work.

Me: Well, it was built around this event/season/need, so it may be too late. We can do both.

Client: Well, you think your plan is better?

Me: I did research the plan we discussed this morning and, as I said earlier, what your friends are suggesting has not worked in your industry, so it's your call, but my advice is to stick with the original plan.

Client: Okay, well, let's just try their plan. They've seen it work.

I'm sure you know how this goes. At the end of the campaign, client is frustrated and wondering why the marketing isn't working the way they want it to. I am equally frustrated, and wondering when a good time to fire my client (and their friends) is. Client wants to know why they didn't get the leads or generate clients for their business. I wonder to myself when my advice, the advice they pay for because I do this for a living, became less important than their friends, and if they blamed their friends for the failure, too. Don't worry, I'm not deluding myself, I know they aren't blaming their friends.

What's the lesson learned here? Those friends that my parents used to worry about influencing my decision making, are still here, and they are talking to everyone's clients and influencing their decision making. And while you may be getting paid for executing a bad plan after coming up with a brilliant one, it doesn't make it feel any better. We all want to be successful, right?

Communicating Clearly

My father used to tell me to 'speak the Queen's English' as he suffered through yet one more Valley Girl conversation sprinkled with the words, like, as if, duh, and um. I didn't know it then, but I was using verbal crutches to express myself and give me time to think. Unfortunately, to him, like meant something completely different and I was using the term in a manner unfamiliar to him.

Fast forward to today. I wonder what kids are learning in school. Really, I do. With programs like Dragon making sure they have no idea how to spell what they are speaking, and texting and Twitter encouraging everyone to take shortcuts, I really wonder if we look or sound like a literate society. Am I isolated and this is an American phenomenon, or is it a worldwide occurrence?

Whatever it is, it impacts me, my clients and my friends pretty much the same way. We've all learned to interpret shortcuts. The issue becomes when my interpretation of the shortcut is different than yours. It's kind of like the water closet v toilet discussion.

Drama Central - Avoid It by Communicating!

So I just got a phone call from a guy I work with. His request was simple - please stop sending email. One of the recipients called him to tell him what she thought. Not surprisingly, what she thought was completely incorrect because she hadn't attended any of the meetings she was invited to.

My first question? Why didn't she call me and ask for clarification. Kind of a moot question, really.

My second question? Why didn't he just tell her to call me and ask. Seems easy to me. We're all adults, in theory, and if there is an issue or question, just call the person that wrote the email. I thought communication skills like that were learned in high school and college, although sometimes I'm not great at it myself.

The third question, and the real kicker for me, was why stop using email as a communication tool? Sometimes it's not my issue if you can't have a conversation with someone who is sending you email. Yes, I get that some people send email when angry, and that's an email best addressed face-to-face to iron out all of the communication issues. Other types of email that make for communication challenges are those that require a response that won't make the recipient very happy, daily emails with a lot of extraneous information you don't really need, and emails about relationship details. However, to stop communicating by email because one recipient refuses to communicate directly or participate in the discussion in a meaningful way is just wrong.

Lesson for the day? There are some people who cannot or will not respond to an email because they have already made assumptions about the intent of the email. The resulting confusion created by multiple phone calls and texts to everyone except the sender causes drama and dissension within the group of recipients. And sometimes that can't be helped, but you can do your part to stamp out drama central by picking up the phone yourself and calling the individual causing the drama.

Life lesson: if you spend time in drama central on a regular basis, and it's caused by the people around you, the relationship may be toxic. If it's a work situation, there's not much you can do, but if it's a personal situation, say when you are volunteering your time or with your friends and/or family, do a cost benefit analysis and make sure at the end of the day, the aggravation is worth the energy you put into it. If you spend time in drama central on a regular basis, and the people around you are everchanging, consider the fact that you may be the drama.